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There was a great turnout for this years Southern Straits, a 137 mile race in the Straits of Georgia. This race is nice because you get a chance to visit the beautiful south British Columbia coast, and race some competetive boats from the Victoria, Vancouver, and Seattle area. The only other events that draw this particular fleet together are Swiftsure and Whidbey Race Week.

There are two courses, a long and a short. On the short course this year was an Olson 30 that did very well, 2nd in Division, Kokopelli. Congratulations! The short course boats had some of the same troubles as the long course boats, experiencing great winds the first 3/4 of the race, then parking for most of the night before finishing early in the morning. I was on the Cookson 12m, White Cloud, on the long course, however, so my perspective was from the front of the long course fleet.

The weather forecast was for light to moderate winds Friday, and an advancing 1012 mb Low coming in from the Queen Charlottes Saturday afternoon, with a Gale Warning for the Straits of Juan De Fuca.

Friday morning we cast off and made our way to the start. The RC was starting all the long course boats in one start (around 30 boats!), and with boats like Atalanta (the roving windshadow) in the same start as us, it was essential to get a great start and go for clear air. The sequence was 10 min, 4 min, 1 min. Some boats obviously didnt understand what was going on, and there were two very distinct rows of starters. We started at 10:30 in a light WSWesterly, and immediately got some seperation from the fleet, while keeping with who we thought were our competition: Occams Razor and Flash Gordon II. Occams had taken a 2nd last year, Terremoto a 3rd. Both were back to defend, as was Stingray (later retired), who was defending a first place. The first row of starters went hell-bent towards Sisters in the light air, steadily pulling away from the other boats. An Open 50 (-60), Icon (-75), Jeito (-21) and Terremoto were in the lead, as light beam-reachy conditions favored the asym sprit boats. We traded a few gybes with Occams Razor and after 5 miles ended up ahead, with Flash and Occam even with each other behind us. Now it was time to pour on the speed and loose those two!

Easier said than done. The wind built and went aft, to about 18-20 knots true, and we peeled to the .8 oz kite. Kotuku and Marda Gras finally caught us 3/4 of the way to sisters, and slowly moved past us. About 9 miles from Sisters the wind backed a little and we peeled to the large masthead kite again. One terrible gybe has cut the lead we had on Occams and Flash in half, but we still lead them comfortably to Sisters, where we performed a good rounding and went up with the #2. It was 10 after 5, and we were excited to have rounded in daylight. Now we were on a long beat for the TA bouy near the airport. Within a few miles Flash rolled over top of us with their longer waterline and Occams threatened to do the same, so we took a hitch out and put of the medium #1 on the tack back to port. Flash did a sail change but faded to leward, looking at going through the Balenas channel, while we tried to stay high and on the outside of Balenas. Occams was somewhere below us, not far away. Terremoto had gone to the beach. Jeito and the other 2 larger boats were not really in view anymore, and the Santa Cruzes were fighting it out just slightly ahead of us and to leward.

Night. The wind completely dissapated with the oncoming darkness. Where we had once reckoned we would round TA at midnight, that suddenly became 3 am, then dawn, then after dawn. During the wee hours of the morning, we struggled for boatspeed. In a really light northerly, we made about 1-2 knots with a spin up. The moon was bright, full; perfect for the cold night. We knew the other boats were nearby, as we had several stern lights within a mile, but we didnt know who they were. Occams had parralleled our course for some time after dark, then gone further offshore. We had traded a few tacks with Flash. But progress was agonizingly slow, the only consolation was that we knew it would likely be slower for anyone behind us.

Dawn. 12 hours after rouding Sisters, the sky started to brighten, and the story was the same: light, light, light. We were a few miles from the TA bouy now, and what was saw chilled us a little - the BOC and Icon were nowhere to be seen, but Occams Razor was leading Jeito away from the turning mark, with Marda in third! How did they do that?? Just at the mark now were Flash and Kotuku, dueling red spinnakers, heading towards Halibut Banks. And then, to add insult to injury, Terremoto emerged out of the fog and we converged ever so slowly on the TA bouy together. They rounded a 1/2 mile ahead of us. Finally, 17 hours after rounding Sisters, we rounded the TA bouy and were on our way in the light Northeasterly for Halibut and the final turning mark to the finish.

We were now moving along the rhumb line at about 3 knots boatspeed, with Terremoto increasing their lead, and the dueling red spinnkers only faintly visble in the distance. Then, behind a huge logboom and tug, came the rest of the long course fleet. Time Bandit was leading the 2nd place boats to the TA mark by more than a mile, but the cluster behind Time Bandit had no clear leader. General Hospital, Showtime, all the regular faces were still in the hunt.

At about 3pm, Steve and Dave started questioning the wisdom of finishing at all. The boat had to be back to Seattle by Sunday afternoon, and everyone had other things to do this weekend too. We were not going to catch Terremoto, Flash, or Occams Razor, nor were we going to loose to Atalanta, the only other boat in our fleet that could displace us at this point. We had been waiting patiently for the forcast Southerlies to arrive, but when it became clear they never would, we called it good. Halfway between TA and Halibut, with less than 30 miles to finish, we dropped the sails and started motoring.

As to the finishers, they started slowly rolling in about an hour after we got back. The Open 50 corrected over Icon, but Occam's Razor corrected out over everyone and took a handy first. The wind had built during the afternoon, and the slower boats rolled in all at once around 9pm.

Overall a great race! Results here:
http://www.wvyc.bc.ca/racing/straits/Straits2002/Results2002.htm